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“I don’t have a two o’clock,” the voice said jovially. Leaning out to take a look, Giovanni spotted him. “Ah.”
Giovanni looked surprised to see him, but greeted him with a smile. Bron mimicked the gesture. Giovanni took the young man’s hands and shook them vigorously. “Do not stress, Frank. This chapter is coming along marvelously.” And he planted a quick businesslike kiss on his cheek.
Bron made himself as small as possible as the man named Frank squeezed past him in the stairwell. He apologized for being in the way and felt at once that it had been a mistake to come here. As though he were doing something wrong. Once Frankhad moved far enough down the stairs, Bron turned toward the stairs and said, “I didn’t mean to intrude. I can come back another time.”
“No, no, no,” Giovanni insisted, stepping out of the room. “Now is good. Please do come in.”
He was guided into a room that was barer than he’d expected: painted a chamomile yellow, a green Chesterfield sofa rested on one side, and close beside it, a wooden-framed armchair with tattered cushions. The shelves lining the wall were full of books that spilled onto the floor, but apart from that, it seemed to him more like a room for counseling.
“Please sit,” Giovanni said, and because he took the armchair, Bron unquestioningly took to the sofa. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” he replied, obedient and following through with the necessary small talk. “The past couple of weeks have been interesting, to say the least.”
“I bet. Dickie told me what happened. I’m sorry not to have spoken to you sooner. I’ve been swamped with dissertation corrections and deadlines. But you are all good? All okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“And the others, they are good, too? Dickie tells me they are. Theo and the little one? Nobody was hurt.”
Everybody was fine, he said, although deeply shocked and still feeling the impact.
“I see, I see. And how can I help you today?”
He knew his reason for being here. To prod Giovanni into saying more about the relationship he suspected he’d had with Darcy. But now he was sitting before him, he didn’t know what to ask. Or rather, how to ask it. He felt suddenly like he was going behind Darcy’s back.
“You know, I was quite disappointed not to see you at the party that night,” Bron began.
Giovanni shifted in his seat. “Yes, I … In the end I realized my presence would have caused more upset than good. I know Dickie wanted me there.”
The truth, of course, was that it wasn’t just Mr. Edwards who had wanted Giovanni to attend. Bron had searched for him, had expected to find him. “I had gone through quite the effort with my costume in the hope to impress you.” Bron’s words were calculated.
“You impress me now, piccolino.”
“Thanks.” Bron gave him a rushed summary of his costume, about how their conversation about his favorite novel had inspired him to invert the situation and in the process explore a part of himself through his disguise.
“A Brontification of the Edwardses’ Halloween ball, if you will?”
“Well, yes.” Bron smiled.
“You thought critically about the piece and had something to say about it. Living, breathing performance art. Full marks—well done! I wish I could have seen it.”
Bron cast his gaze to the floor in an embarrassment he couldn’t quite place. A symptom of always wanting to perform well at school. “And the reason you didn’t come … it’s because of Darcy isn’t it? The two of you—I mean, you were friends, weren’t you? I’ve gathered that much.”
Giovanni fell back into his chair with a slump, took in a breath before saying, “Yes. We were friends.”
Bron looked up again and noticed the dark, almost purple circles under Giovanni’s eyes. The sadness that glazed over them. The photographs of them together, edged beside the river, swam back into his mind. Giovanni seemed almost wolfish now, compared to his teenage years. “It doesn’t make sense to me. The way you are in each other’s presence. The rest of the family love you. I’m not sure I understand the friction. What happened?”
Giovanni shook his head; it was not his place to share such information. But Bron needed to know more. It was why he had come here, and something at the back of his mind needed to know if the animated life he’d given the image had any truth to it. He was rather attuned to seeing things that weren’t alwaysvisible, like a sixth sense. At St. Mary’s he could predict when the tempest outside would worsen and the damage it would cause to the already leaky ceilings. He’d place pots by his bed in anticipation, and come morning, they’d be full to the brim with water. He was good at identifying which of the boys was due to leave them weeks before it happened, and eventually he’d announce his parents were pulling him out or that he was transferring to another school. Together they would hustle around and bid their goodbyes. A quick glance at the face of the departing figure, and his eyes—which locked onto one of the boys who stood slightly away from all the rest—would confirm to him another invisible truth: which of them would be missed the most.
Bron didn’t push Giovanni for an answer, but he must have read the disappointment on his face. “I suppose I could tell you about one time in France … The Edwardses, they keep a farmhouse there, a little building in the middle of Toulouse.” He paused, and Bron thought that this was as much as he would get. “Theo used to love going there—he said it was something about the rooms being scantily dressed, that it allowed for a sense of freedom and expansion—his words, not mine—and that the views of the hills opened onto a land that stretched green and yellow. I understood what he meant. It reminded me of my hometown in Italy. But I remember he used to say how much he hated Greenwood, and every other English country house that seemed to him to produce quite the opposite effect. Claustrophobic, he said, where the rooms, though large, are oppressive; where the parks, though green, are manicured and at the mercy of the clipper, sheared into shape should they dare to grow outside the bounds of what’s been deemed appropriate. Such a garden your Darcy claims England to be, and he the budding rosebush who’s learned to hide his thorns. As had I, of course. I wasn’t always this open about myself, but such natural inclinations are impossible to impede, and if forced under restraint will only emerge under another disguise. So yes, you could say that we were friends.”
This was it. This was what he’d come to hear. But still he hadn’t heard it exactly. “But you were more than friends?” he pushed. “You were …”Lovers.He let the pause linger.
Giovanni stood, shrugged into his coat silently. “Follow me.”
Bron asked where they were going, but Giovanni gave nothing away. They descended the cramped stairs together, but instead of going back through the archway from which he’d come, Giovanni diverted, through another door and down a hallway that echoed with the cacophony of voices and the clatter of dishes. They entered a dining hall. Though it was quite past lunch, a few students loitered. For the most part the room was empty. Giovanni walked along the wood-paneled walls, the sunlight, filtering through the great hall’s windows, bringing out the red undertones of the wood and making the golden chandeliers shimmer.
They stopped beneath a painting, one which depicted the portrait of a boy—or a man, he couldn’t be sure—which hung for all to see. The portrait looked out with an androgynous face, and Bron felt immediately taken in by it.
